Kamala's Story
by treesofsilverleaves
Summary: Kamala's lost something precious to her - her bending.  She joined the Avatar with the hopes he could help her. Follow her as she gains a new ability and finds out how it's possible. Eventual Aang/OC, summary subject to change.
1. Chapter 1

**The story starts at the end of the episode The Puppet Master.**

As Hama was taken away, I sobbed silently in relief. Finally, the evil old woman got what she deserved. I watched the watertribe girl put her hand to her mouth and begin to cry. I wished I could comfort her – I'd been taught the same horrible technique by the crazy woman three years ago. I'd been just as unwilling as her, and just as threatened – Hama had almost killed my parents, the only people I had left after my surrogate aunt had disappeared and we'd moved away.

The watertribe girl dropped to her knees as Hama laughed horribly. Two boys, one watertribe and the other wearing a headband, put their hands on her shoulders in comfort. I wanted to give them a moment, but I couldn't let them go back to town without asking for their help – the whole reason I'd run away from home.

I'd been following their tracks for a month now, and I had finally caught up to them in this moonlit forest as Hama was taken away. I didn't know how to go about this, though. I couldn't just go up to the kid with the headband and say "I know you're the Avatar." They'd run away, or deny it and wouldn't help me, just because I'm firenation – or part firenation, anyway.

I shifted, and a branch cracked, breaking the silence of the forest as the watertribe girl cried. The three of them didn't notice, but there was another girl there, and she turned in my direction, although I don't know how, because once her eyes are revealed to me I see that she's blind.

"There's someone over there!" the blind girl shouted, and she and the two boys go into fighting stances. From her stance it looks like the girl is an earthbender, the watertribe boy isn't a bender at all, and I already know that the boy with the headband is the Avatar, although I can't tell his bending from his stance.

"Come out!" yelled the watertribe boy, standing in front of the watertribe girl. His sister, perhaps. The Avatar and the blind girl both nodded.

"I don't mean anyone any harm," I whispered, flipping out of the tree I was hiding in and putting my hands up.

"Who are you?" the watertribe boy asked, still ready to fight. The blind girl is too, although the Avatar had shifted slightly out of his stance.

"My name is Kamala," I answered. "And I am – was – a waterbender. I need your help."

"She's not lying," the blind girl said. I was confused as to how she might know this, and resolved to ask later. If there was a later, that is.

"You're a waterbender?" the watertribe girl questioned, lifting her head and sniffling. The watertribe boy and the Avatar rushed over to her to be sure she is okay.

"Yes. I was, anyway," I answer, putting my hands down and looking away.

"But not anymore? How?" she wondered, standing with the help of the boy.

"I… I don't know," I muttered, tears burning at the corner of my eyes. "I turned thirteen just a while ago. On my birthday, I woke up at dawn as I usually do to practice before the workers rise. But… I couldn't bend the water. I couldn't _bend_, something that I had been doing my whole life. _I couldn't bend the water!_"

I sounded hysterical, even to myself, but I calmed down quickly, wiping away the stray tears.

"How did you find us?" the watertribe boy asked after a pause.

"I… You left behind quite a trail. Hard to find, but accessible. I started out looking for rumors of anything unusual – someone told me about that dance party you had… I followed the path of sightings of a kid in a headband and a blind girl traveling with two other kids."

"But how did you get into the firenation without being captured?" the boy asked suspiciously.

"Er… I am firenation," I admitted sheepishly. "Part. My mother, Kona, was from the Southern Watertribe, though."

"Southern Watertribe?" the boy yelped, as his and the watertribe girl's eyes widened.

"We're from the Southern Watertribe!" the girl smiled widely.

"But how did she get to the firenation?"

"She was captured as a little girl during the raids for waterbenders. She grew up in the prison, only knowing about her true home from the stories told by her fellow prisoners. Hama taught her waterbending, though this was before the crazy woman started bloodbending."

"Oh my spirits," the watertribe girl murmured. She walked toward me and put a hand on my shoulder, urging me to continue.

"My dad was the son of a high-up military leader. He was expected to follow in his father's footsteps, so he became a guard. He was transferred to the prison where the waterbenders were kept… And met my mom.

"Over the course of a year, they began to talk, and eventually, he helped her to escape. They got married, and had me."

"Wow…" the watertribe girl whispered.

"Do you seriously believe her?" the watertribe boy cut in suddenly. I jumped, but I had been expecting at least someone to be disbelieving.

"My name is Kamala," I said quietly. "I was named after my grandmother, on my mom's side. Watertribe."

"She's right," the watertribe girl nodded.

"Either she's very convincing, or she's not lying," the blind girl added.

"My name's Aang," the Avatar suddenly said. He pointed at each person in turn. "This is Katara, Toph, and Sokka."

I gave a tiny wave at each of them, and saying, "Hi. I just told you my name is Kamala, so…"

"So why do you need my help?" Aang asked.

"I was hoping you could help me find a way to get my bending back. Or, as the bridge between the two worlds, you could maybe ask the spirits…?"

"I guess I could try," he offered, shrugging.

"Thank you. But even if you couldn't… I want to help you. Defeat the Fire Lord."

"Why? This is your nation."

"It is, but that doesn't mean I'll blindly go along with everything the Fire Lord says, or that I condone trying to _take over the world and disrupt the balance_."

Lo and behold, with that sentence I was accepted into the group.

Later, the group was packing their things, getting ready to move on. I didn't have much, and it was already prepared for the journey – a small tent, a blanket, a map, some money, and my double broadswords, a gift from an old friend of mine – so I offered to help. I was assisting Katara pack up the sleeping bags, and checked if there was anyone around, seeing no one.

"I know bloodbending too," I breathed to her. Seeing her look startled and panicked, I quickly added, "I mean Hama forced me to learn before I lost my bending, a few years ago. I know how you feel… And I feel worse."

Katara whirled around and glared at me. "How? How can you possibly feel _worse_?"

"I can't talk about that."

"If you can't trust us, then we can't trust you," Sokka announced roughly, leaning on a tree trunk. I squeaked, startled, and looked around. Aang, Toph, and Sokka had surrounded us during my words, and I bet they'd heard everything I said.

"It's painful."

"Talk."

"…she made me kill someone," I whispered brokenly. "She threatened my parents. We'd just moved away from everyone else in the world that I loved, and they were all I had left. She said if I told anyone, she'd kill all the servants – er, workers, and if I didn't kill the man using bloodbending, she'd murder my parents."


	2. Chapter 2

**I know the first chapter was a little fast – maybe they were all a little too quick to trust, too quick to tell their stories. But I didn't really know how to start it. Sorry!**

Silence. I sobbed quietly, once more reveling in the relief of Hama being gone and wallowing in my grief. Katara was the first to come to me. She put a hand on my shoulder. I shook.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I know it won't help, but I'm sorry."

She hugged me, like a mother, and I clung to her for it. Aang was next to walk over and kneel beside Katara and I, and he stroked my hair soothingly. Sokka and Toph came after, muttering apologies.

After a while, I calmed down, and sniffled, "N-no, it's fine. We should be focused on Katara. I've had time to deal with it."

"No one should have to deal with that," Aang said. Katara nodded, her chin brushing my forehead.

"Let's get some sleep," she suggested. We all agreed.

Because we'd been packing to move on, we left only one, large tent out of the bags in Appa's saddle, for us all to sleep in - to share warmth. I laid down in the far corner of the tent, curling tightly into a ball while the others slept in a row. I didn't have any dreams.

Around dawn I woke up, feeling something warm pressing along my back. Two arms encircled my own, which were wrapped around my knees, trapping me. My face burned, and I heard and felt the steady breathing of the boy hugging me in his sleep.

I craned my neck around and saw it was Aang, with his eyes closed and a peaceful expression on his sleeping face. Further analysis showed me that Katara, who'd been sleeping on the other side of Aang, had sprawled out and was taking up the space of two people, shoving the young Avatar into my spot, where I took up less than half the space of one person.

I flushed further, and attempted to wiggle around without waking the boy – that would be embarrassing. It was no use though. I laid there for a time, breathing slowly and thinking back on the recent events of my life while in the warm, relaxing grip of a boy I barely knew, the Avatar no less. Then I fell asleep.

When I woke again, I remembered nothing, and was once more alone in my spot in the tent.

We woke up a few hours after dawn the next morning and set off. Aang explained about the invasion as Sokka led us to the rendezvous point. We didn't get there until the middle of the night, because we had to make a few rest stops and we got lost once or twice, but we got there eventually. Sokka led us through a large hedge, and I stared in awe at the scene before us. "This is it," he said, looking at the map, "the official rendezvous point for the invasion force."

I surveyed the mountains and fields of sleeping koala-sheep before us as Toph voiced my thoughts: "How did you pick this place?"

"Before we split up, my dad and I found this island on a map. It's uninhabited, and the harbor surrounded by cliffs seemed like the perfect secluded place," he answered. My eyes widened and I looked around, spotting the cliffs. I ran to the edge, and looked down.

Immediately I looked back up and backed away, feeling dizzy. Being up on Appa was one thing, and I wasn't even afraid of heights, but the cliff face was pretty much a straight drop down to the ground. Where it was angled, it came up so that if I fell off, I would land dead in the water – and be unable to waterbend myself to safety.

All manner of scenarios ran through my head. Shuddering, I returned to the group where they were preparing for bed.

"Nice choice, Sokka. And we're here four days ahead of schedule," Katara commented, setting out her mat. I felt sick to my stomach thinking about it. I needed to train more; I'd allowed myself to slack off in search of Aang and company, but that wouldn't happen again. Ever.

Training, in both martial arts and bending, had been my life since I was nine years old.

Aang looked shocked. "Wait," he shot out of bed and high into the air. "four days!" He looked horrified. "The invasion's in four days!"

Sokka yawned, and answered nonchalantly, "Whatever. That's like… Four days from now." He lay down on his mat, settling in noisily. "Let's just calm down and…" He trailed off with a monumental snore. I couldn't find the strength to laugh at his comical actions. This was too serious, and I was too nervous.

Katara lay down on her own mat. "Sokka's got the right idea, Aang. We're here, we're ready… The best we can do now is get plenty of rest."

"Uh…" Aang stuttered, looking frantically around. Everyone else seemed to be asleep. I nodded at him, hugging my knees to my chest for a moment, observing the sky. I heard him mumble, "I guess," and curl up on the grass. A shooting star crossed the sky; I made my wish. Then I curled up myself, shivering not from cold, but from something entirely different.

I slept straight through the night with no dreams. I was exhausted.

The next morning, I drifted into consciousness to the sound of branches shaking and someone hitting something. "Mmph," I mumbled, turning over on my mat. The sounds continued, and I dragged myself into awareness. My eyes shot open, and I sat up slowly. The others were starting to wake, and I stood, holding back a yawn. It was fairly light out, upsetting me slightly. I was used to waking up with the sun.

A look around told me that it was Aang punching a tree not far from where we had set up camp. He was training, which I approved of, but he was doing it all wrong. He was punching a _tree_ for Spirits' sakes!

Katara turned toward Sokka, who shrugged, then rose and approached Aang. "Hey, how long have you been up?" she questioned.

"A couple of hours." He circled the tree with all sorts of fancy punches and footwork. Kind of ridiculous, really. "I got a lot more skills to refine if I'm going to fight Ozai."

That didn't sound right. Aang used the Firelord's first name? It made no sense.

"You know, there is such a thing as over training," Katara told an out-of-breath Aang. He gave one final punch to the tree, so hard that he fell over. Two seconds later all the leaves fell off the tree. Astonished, I looked at Aang's wide eyes. They had bags underneath them.

"You don't get it, do you?" Aang asked rhetorically, circling Katara with various air punches and defense maneuvers. "My form is bad. I'm sloppy. And I still don't know any fire bending, not even the basics."

"And there's no such thing as over training, Katara," I added, while Aang continued on with his ridiculously exaggerated martial arts. He stopped short with his hand dead in front of Katara's face, eye twitching. She worriedly moved it away.

Sokka was relaxing on the ground, looking at his map. "That's okay Aang. The eclipse will block all firebending anyway, you don't need to know any." He looked up. "Plus it's a stupid element."

"Hey!" I scolded, hands on my hips. "I take offense to that!"

"Yeah, yeah, you're from the Fire Nation, but it's not like you're a firebender!"

"My dad's a firebender."

Everybody stared at me. I stared back. "Okay, well anyway," Aang interrupted our tense silence, starting a combination of sloppy maneuvers, "I still have to work on everything else. I'd better spend the whole day training." He bowed to each of us quickly, bending a ball of air and riding away on it.

I looked at everyone else. "Personally, I think he has the right idea."


	3. Chapter 3

**New chapter pretty quick this time, huh? I'm so excited! But I have to ask: Would you rather have longer chapters and less updates, or shorter chapters and possibly more updates?**

I'm not sure how everyone else spent the day, but I constantly trained. There were warm-ups and martial arts maneuvers and acrobatics. Finally, feeling nostalgic, I picked up my duel broadswords. They were a gift from… From a friend. A friend I hadn't seen since I was eight years old.

While I went through the motions, I felt a keen sense of longing, though I didn't know what for. For my old life, for my friend, or my family. Maybe it was for my bending. I'd used to use my broadswords as extensions of my bending, letting the water reach out from the blades like whips or freeze and fly off of them like arrows. I imagined the cool feel of the water just out of reach, yet somehow encompassing my hands; it was how I always felt when I was bending. But there was an unmistakable loss in this image.

No matter how hard I tried, I could not bend.

It was a long day, and I did not stop training until dark. Silently, I walked back to where we had set up camp, and curled up on my mat. Sleep did not come right away, although I was exhausted, and like the night before, I watched the sky.

Eventually, Aang slinked back to us, yawning long and loud, before falling back onto the ground. "Goodnight Katara," he began. "Goodnight Sokka. Good night Toph. Good night Appa. Good night Momo. Good night Appa and Momo."

He would have continued on, I'm sure, but Toph chose to interrupt then. "Go to sleep already!" she yelled. Aang shut up. I took notice that he did not say goodnight to me.

For a moment I felt strangely disappointed, but it was there so briefly that I felt I must have imagined it.

This time I did not sleep straight through the night. In fact, I didn't sleep at all. I kept watching the stars, thinking about my past, my mother's past, and stories I'd been told. I almost jumped when Aang woke with a start sometime in the middle of the night. He didn't notice me, his brow dripping with sweat, and he muttered, "I've got to be ready!"

He got up and walked away. In a split second, I made my decision, and discreetly followed him. He wandered aimlessly, confused, for a few moments, before happening on a group of sleeping koala-sheep. He circled around them like he had Katara early this morning, practicing various defensive moves. Something inside of me tightened, seeing him so distressed. I dismissed it immediately.

Eventually, I approached him. "You're doing it all wrong," I called softly, catching his attention. He looked panicked for a moment, but I was quick to reassure him. "You shouldn't be practicing on these poor koala-sheep, they're sleeping!"

"But I forgot my pants and my math test! I need to train!"

"But nothing. I know you need to train. The best training is with another person." I unsheathed my broadswords, which I had hastily tied on my hips before following him. "Come at me," I beckoned, "bending and all."

I could clearly see the bags underneath his eyes, even in the dark of night, but that didn't stop me from sparring with him. He needed to train to defeat the Fire Lord, and I just needed to train in general. To help. Aang must have been more than just tired, even more than just exhausted, for his movements were sloppy and his bending weak. I had him pinned to the ground after around twenty minutes of sparring.

"Aang, you need to get some sleep now," I insisted, helping him up. He looked at me, confused.

"Why? You agreed with me when I said I needed to train…" He resumed his earlier motions around the koala-sheep, looking wild but concentrated.

"It's the middle of the night, Aang. You can barely stand. I pinned you to the ground! You can bend, and I can't; you're the _Avatar, _I shouldn't have been able to do it as easily as I did!"

"You need to go back to sleep, Aang," came a new voice. It was Katara. I didn't know how much of our encounter she had seen, but she seemed very worried. "Please? For me?"

Aang looked between the two of us, even more confused than earlier, rubbing his eyes like a sleepy child. Perhaps he was a sleepy child. He just had a great burden to bear.

I offered a hand, as did Katara, and we led him back to camp.

I didn't go to sleep when we got back to camp. I lay on my mat and watched the stars, constantly aware of Aang tossing and turning in the grass. It reminded me of the reoccurring nightmares I'd had a while back, which still haunted me most of the time. They starred a cast consisting of all manner of people I'd known and loved from my childhood, along with many I did not wish to remember. I'd been lucky the past few nights, not to have had these nightmares. So much had gone on, and I'd been too tired to even dream.

At dawn I dragged myself up from my mat and grabbed my broadswords, intent on beginning to train once more. I spent the next hour or so combining various acrobatics and swings of my blade into a new maneuver. I was in the middle of a midair spin when Aang started yelling. I landed in a typical crouch, then stood and sprinted to camp.

Aang was shaking a still half-asleep Sokka, babbling and yelling about how he needed to know what day it was. He pulled on Sokka's eyelids and lips, finally getting him to wake. "What!" Sokka shouted, jumping up, "Who's talking?" He swung his sword, but hit a rock head-on and fell backwards before he could complete the swing.

Toph and Katara sat up drowsily, Toph voicing what we all knew. "Relax. It's still two days before the invasion." I winced, thinking about how I needed to get back to training, but thought that perhaps it would be best to spar with Aang. Again, it was always best to practice with another person.

Aang hopped around a sleepy Sokka, tugging on various limbs in an attempt to get him standing. "Sokka, you've got to get up and drill your rock climbing exercises."

"What?"

Aang, looking unfocused and confused, started making over-exaggerated motions to accent his speech. "In one of my dreams, you were running from fire nation soldiers, trying to climb this cliff, but you were too slow and they got you!" Sokka sprang up, looking disgruntled.

"But that was just a dream," he whined, pointing at Aang, "I'm a great climber."

Aang pulled Sokka over to a semi-large, steep cliff. He pointed up at it. "Then climb that cliff! Climb it fast!"

Sokka looked incredulously at the top of the cliff, then back at Aang. He pointed to himself in disbelief. Aang nodded, and Sokka slunk to the cliff face in disappointment, beginning to climb. Faintly, I could hear him muttering, annoyed, "Stupid Avatar. Stupid cliff. Stupid dream! I can climb fast!"

I couldn't see Aang's reaction to this, because his back was turned, but I imagined he was somewhat relieved. Those dreams were taking a toll on him, I could tell.

Suddenly, he turned around to where Toph and Katara were sitting, Toph about to take a sip of water. "Don't drink that!" he yelled. Sokka started and slipped down the cliff. A startled Toph threw the satchel of water away and spit her drink out on a disgusted Katara. A tint of jealousy colored me for a moment seeing Katara waterbend the water off of herself, annoyed.

"Why? Is it poisoned?" a perturbed Toph asked. Aang approached the two, his eyes crossed in a way that worried me.

"In my dream, we were right in the middle of the invasion, and you had to stop to use the bathroom," he explained, mimicking holding his bladder, "We died because of your tiny bladder."

"And you," he said, addressing me, "you need to be more careful with your swords." I jumped, surprised that I was in any of his dreams. Heat filled my cheeks. "I had a dream where we were being chased by firebenders, and you dropped your sword and tripped on it, and…"

"Aang," I interrupted, "you need to calm down. They were just dreams!"

"And Katara!" he continued, as if I hadn't said anything, "you need to start wearing your hair up! In my dream, your hair got caught by a train and…"

"Aang, I know you're just trying to help," Katara said, putting a motherly hand on his cheek. "But you really need to get a grip. You're unraveling."

Aang looked around, unsettled. The dark shadows under his eyes indicated his extreme exhaustion, and he let out a sigh. "You're right," he agreed, "I'm losing my mind."

At that moment, Sokka, who was nearly at the top of the cliff, slid down to the bottom of the cliff, yelling.


End file.
